Opposition parties had been consulted and
Coleman hoped they would support it.

The bill, he said,
would allow agencies to work more closely together under
stronger leadership with the State Service Commissioner
given a larger role.

Chris Hipkins
said the Labour party had three main areas of concerns and
it could not support the bill in its current form. He urged
the Government not to pass major reform covering the state
sector without a general consensus.

The main concerns were
around:

– the power for chief executives to delegate
statutory powers to a private entity outside the public
service.

- changes to the rules over parliamentary
scrutiny by combining the estimates and financial review
promises. (Hipkins said it was unconstitutional to pass laws
changing standing orders, thus by passing the Standing
Orders Committee’s convention of working by
consensus).

- changes to the way collective bargaining is
conducted and controlled by the Government.

National had
not sought to form a cross-party consensus on the
contentious issues and Labour was open to talks on the
issue, he said.

There were many parts of the bill that
were good and deserved to pass, but Hipkins said the
contentious issues were too serious for it to support the
bill.

The Greens and
New Zealand First also expressed opposition, but debate on
the first reading was interrupted before a vote could be
taken when the House rose at 10pm.

Earlier there was
general agreement about the need for reform of financial
reporting standards.

Commerce Minister Craig Foss said the
Financial Reporting Bill rationalises
financial reporting for companies and entities to make it
more standard and appropriate for the size of the
company.

Current requirements were expensive and time
consuming and the bill would cut red tape.

Labour’s
David Parker said the legislation was good and Labour would
support it.

He would want to look at other areas where
technical accounting requirements were more than
needed.

The bill
completed its first reading on voice vote and was sent to
the commerce committee for consideration.

Earlier in the
evening the Advanced Technology Institute Bill
completed its committee stage and was reported on a voice
vote, though the Greens and Mana did vote against various
parts of the bill.

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